Description: Introduction to Mussar 02
We raised some important questions. Why are we learning mussar? What’s the need? We isolated four reasons why we might think mussar isn’t necessary:
The truth is, we can hear and learn the concept of believing in Hashem, loving Hashem and fearing Hashem, having good midos and so on. But we don’t really understand it, nor do we have a true appreciation of these concepts. What we know is like the tiny thumbnail that appears on our screen, of a 2-hour video. How much information is in that thumbnail? How much more is in the video? The difference between our knowledge and what we have to learn to truly appreciate the above concepts, is much, much greater than that!
The process of learning mussar is fleshing out that little thumbnail and developing it into a full 2-hour video – and only then can that knowledge penetrate our heart, affect our emotions, become a part of who we are. This requires intense and focused learning.
For example. I can tell you a fact. Seatbelts save lives. I can even give you a number, a statistic. “When used correctly, wearing a seat belt reduces the risk of fatal injury to front seat passenger car occupants by 45%, and risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50%.” Will this make you put on a seatbelt (assuming you don’t yet)? Probably not. What if I presented it this way: “According to auto insurance industry experts, the average driver will be a car accident once every 18 or so years. This means that, over the course of lifetime, the average motorist will be in about 4 car accidents.” Now any one of those accidents, can be a potentially fatal accident Chas V’Shalom. So not wearing a seatbelt, increases a person’s chance of dying within the next 20 years by 50%!
This already has a much more powerful effect. What did I do? I only spelled out the numbers and explained the practical reality. This is deeper understanding – this is learning. But let’s say I take it a step further, and I describe a fatal car crash in detail. My daughter just went to drivers ed, so I’ve been hearing about this! We can paint a picture of a person driving safely, speed limit, eyes on the road, not distracted, and a car has a brake failure, and barrels into him – t-bone collision. I can describe how the car turns into an accordion, the windshield shatters, airbags inflate, the way he is twisted by car bending, etc. etc. But he stays in his seat. Why? Because he has a seatbelt. But the person in the passenger seat doesn’t. That person flies out of their seat and partially out of the window, and is severely injured. They suffer permanent brain damage, and can’t perform simple tasks without great difficulty for the rest of their lives. I don’t need to continue – I think everybody understands – at least for the next week we all will put on our seatbelts!
What if I go a step further – and show you a real-time video of the above crash? You see it, hear the screaming, see the destruction. You then see a follow-up feature on the life of the person hurt and their recovery. This will burn a hole into our psyche – we will be properly cowed into wearing seatbelts! This is precisely what they showed me some 20 years ago or more when I was doing driver’s-ed in New York. Haven’t forgotten it!
Now this isn’t merely that once we see a video our emotions are touched, and we are much more deeply affected than just by reading or hearing an account. What really happened is that we got true and deep understanding of the concept of seatbelts. It started out as a fact, then it became a statistic, then it fleshed out into a real-life scenario, then we heard all the ramifications and repercussions of the event, and then we actually witnessed the event – these are levels upon levels of deeper and more truthful understanding of a concept!
This is how the Ramchal answers the first two questions. Yes, the basics concepts of mussar are things we all know, and yes, the simple superficial facts are not very deep or difficult to understand. But that is very far away from true acquisition of these ideas, incorporating them into our fabric, our sense of self. That requires tons of learning and toil to understand, layer after layer, the depth of each one of the mitzvos we are obligated in – loving Hashem, fearing Hashem, believing in Hashem and so on.
Missed a Shiur? click here for all of Daily D'var Mussar
For a PDF copy of the pages in the sefer we are learning click here.
We raised some important questions. Why are we learning mussar? What’s the need? We isolated four reasons why we might think mussar isn’t necessary:
- We know all the information already.
- It’s a very simple subject matter, which doesn’t require much thought.
- We have other priorities, like gemarah and halachah.
- We don’t really see what mussar accomplishes for us.
The truth is, we can hear and learn the concept of believing in Hashem, loving Hashem and fearing Hashem, having good midos and so on. But we don’t really understand it, nor do we have a true appreciation of these concepts. What we know is like the tiny thumbnail that appears on our screen, of a 2-hour video. How much information is in that thumbnail? How much more is in the video? The difference between our knowledge and what we have to learn to truly appreciate the above concepts, is much, much greater than that!
The process of learning mussar is fleshing out that little thumbnail and developing it into a full 2-hour video – and only then can that knowledge penetrate our heart, affect our emotions, become a part of who we are. This requires intense and focused learning.
For example. I can tell you a fact. Seatbelts save lives. I can even give you a number, a statistic. “When used correctly, wearing a seat belt reduces the risk of fatal injury to front seat passenger car occupants by 45%, and risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50%.” Will this make you put on a seatbelt (assuming you don’t yet)? Probably not. What if I presented it this way: “According to auto insurance industry experts, the average driver will be a car accident once every 18 or so years. This means that, over the course of lifetime, the average motorist will be in about 4 car accidents.” Now any one of those accidents, can be a potentially fatal accident Chas V’Shalom. So not wearing a seatbelt, increases a person’s chance of dying within the next 20 years by 50%!
This already has a much more powerful effect. What did I do? I only spelled out the numbers and explained the practical reality. This is deeper understanding – this is learning. But let’s say I take it a step further, and I describe a fatal car crash in detail. My daughter just went to drivers ed, so I’ve been hearing about this! We can paint a picture of a person driving safely, speed limit, eyes on the road, not distracted, and a car has a brake failure, and barrels into him – t-bone collision. I can describe how the car turns into an accordion, the windshield shatters, airbags inflate, the way he is twisted by car bending, etc. etc. But he stays in his seat. Why? Because he has a seatbelt. But the person in the passenger seat doesn’t. That person flies out of their seat and partially out of the window, and is severely injured. They suffer permanent brain damage, and can’t perform simple tasks without great difficulty for the rest of their lives. I don’t need to continue – I think everybody understands – at least for the next week we all will put on our seatbelts!
What if I go a step further – and show you a real-time video of the above crash? You see it, hear the screaming, see the destruction. You then see a follow-up feature on the life of the person hurt and their recovery. This will burn a hole into our psyche – we will be properly cowed into wearing seatbelts! This is precisely what they showed me some 20 years ago or more when I was doing driver’s-ed in New York. Haven’t forgotten it!
Now this isn’t merely that once we see a video our emotions are touched, and we are much more deeply affected than just by reading or hearing an account. What really happened is that we got true and deep understanding of the concept of seatbelts. It started out as a fact, then it became a statistic, then it fleshed out into a real-life scenario, then we heard all the ramifications and repercussions of the event, and then we actually witnessed the event – these are levels upon levels of deeper and more truthful understanding of a concept!
This is how the Ramchal answers the first two questions. Yes, the basics concepts of mussar are things we all know, and yes, the simple superficial facts are not very deep or difficult to understand. But that is very far away from true acquisition of these ideas, incorporating them into our fabric, our sense of self. That requires tons of learning and toil to understand, layer after layer, the depth of each one of the mitzvos we are obligated in – loving Hashem, fearing Hashem, believing in Hashem and so on.
Missed a Shiur? click here for all of Daily D'var Mussar
For a PDF copy of the pages in the sefer we are learning click here.